1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to test apparatuses and test methods, and particularly to a test apparatus and test method for providing a standard interface to operate a number of different electronic devices.
2. General Background
Generally speaking, newly manufactured products must be tested to ensure they conform to operating specification requirements before they can be distributed into the market. In order to test such products, such products are connected to particular test apparatuses through corresponding interfaces so as to perform required tests thereon.
Different products may employ different serial interfaces with different protocols for communication, such as the I2C (Inter Integrated Circuit) interface, the RS232 (Recommend Standard 232) interface, the USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface, etc. For example, displays, media players, and mice, adopt the I2C interface, the RS232 interface, and the USB interface respectively for communicating with an external device. Consequently, in order to test different products, it is often necessary to provide a plurality of particular test apparatuses, each of which is provided with necessary test commands for testing a specific product. For different test apparatuses, different program applications are separately required for providing different user interfaces. Therefore, more program applications are required if there are more different products to be tested. The cost of tests increases with increasing program applications and test apparatuses required for testing different products.
What is needed, therefore, is a test apparatus and method that provides a standard user interface for operating with a number of different to-be-tested electronic devices.